Whitney Begins to Thin the Herd as Released & Retained is Assembled

Following the conclusion of Walsall's 2016/17 campaign, manager Jon Whitney will be meeting with several members of his first-team squad to discuss whether he will be offering them a new contract to remain at the club next season.

Following the conclusion of Walsall's 2016/17 campaign, manager Jon Whitney will be meeting with several members of his first-team squad to discuss whether he will be offering them a new contract to remain at the club next season.

Several members of the squad, which finished fourteenth in Sky Bet League One, are out of contract at the end of June including, amongst others, Neil Etheridge, Adam Chambers, Isaiah Osbourne and Franck Moussa and the manager is expected to have several tough decisions as the club's finances continue to among the lowest in the division.

Jon Whitney spoke to the local press ahead of today's meetings and admitted that he may lose more of the squad that he first thought, speaking via the Express & Star, he said; "Possibly the turnaround might be bigger than I thought. I just need to have some conversations, honest conversations with certain players. I’m looking forward to that, it’s part of the job."I’m meeting the out-of-contract players Tuesday and all the players that are contracted that I want, I will meet on Wednesday."After that my decisions will be made and players will have time to think about what I’ve said to them. Things will materialise over the next couple of weeks. I’ve spoken to a couple of players as well myself over the last week and I’m going to look at players again next week."I’m up in Scotland next weekend, looking at a couple of players. The work doesn’t stop. I’ve got to sit down, speak to my staff, speak to my chairman, speak to Stefan Gamble and Dan Mole and just see where we are going to go moving forward."